12 ways in which Fulham are ace

Fulham fans in Firdos Square, Baghdad

Another day, another debutant. A warm welcome please for Max Grieve. 

1. They’re not Chelsea. They’re not Arsenal, either. I’m pretty sure Fulham aren’t either of the two Manchester clubs, and I’m damn sure that they’re not Liverpool. Also, Fulham aren’t QPR. Or Stoke. The best thing about Fulham is that they’re not awful. Hitler and people who didn’t like Hitler didn’t see eye to eye on much, but they both liked Fulham – read more on how Hitler loved pints, Tower Bridge and, more than likely, Fulham Football Club here.

Bobby Zamora, Gambling and the Light at the End of the Tunnel

"No admiral hats for you two LOL!"

It was with not only itchy feet, but a heavy heart that I watched Arsenal succumb to their very special brand of spontaneous combustion at Craven Cottage. The Bobby Zamora 90+2 minute winner cost me £2,000.

Ok, it didn’t cost me £2,000 in the literal sense of the word. But it did mean that, down to the final 33 in Paddy Power’s Last Man Standing competition (no we aren’t getting any money for the advertising), I needed an Arsenal win or the draw to progress, more than likely to the final dozen or so. Now I know that even our most hardened of fans will care not - or will even take some perverse joy from this misfortune - but I had promised to buy myself and Rob admiral hats if I won. A pair of beautiful admiral hats. Because that’s how we do things at Magic Spongers; with a bit of panache. And Bobby Zamora, which wasn’t what I called him last night by the way, doesn’t even know that he shat all over two grown mens’ dreams last night.

Liverpool's Lose-Lose Situation

Partisan Alert: Full-time Liverpool fan Alex Bingle gives his views on whether or not he can bring himself to be a part-time Chelsea fan ahead of their meeting at Anfield on Sunday. May contain language United fans find offensive.


I had a flashback last night. It’s late on at the Bernabeu, a tense stalemate in the Champions League. Fabio Aurelio places the ball before whipping in a fierce left-footed cross into a packed penalty area. And who’s there to meet the ball? The smallest man on the pitch, Yossi Benayoun, heading the ball past Spain’s number one goalkeeper to put Liverpool 1-0 up.

“Dream on Scouser! You didn’t even get through the group stage”.

Just over 12 months ago, this was reality as Liverpool eased past Real Madrid into the last 8 of Europe’s elite competition. How times have changed. A completely different reality has come to pass as we await another nervy Anfield night in Europe’s “second rate” competition against Madrid’s “second rate” team. Don’t get me wrong, Atletico have some decent players and you could easily say Simao and Aguero are world class and very worthy opponents. But if you had said to me back in September: “Oi Scouser! Come May, your team are gonna be playing in the Europa League and be seventh in the league behind City, Villa and even Spurs…ha!”, I would have laughed you down.

But who’s laughing now? With depressing familiarity, it’s the same group who taunted me throughout childhood every Monday morning when I trudged into school: Man Utd fans (kids at the time too, obviously). They have finally caught up in the League Championship count and have a chance of overtaking our “magnificent 18” this year. And yet, Liverpool could have a major say in the whole matter as we play host to Chelsea on Sunday. Do we roll over, let Chelsea win and keep United at bay for another season? Or do we go out with pride, beat Chelsea, keep our faint hopes of Champions League qualification alive and potentially hand United the initiative in the title chase.

When asked by United fans, my gut reaction is to say that I hope we lose and gift Chelsea the league. Rather them than Utd right? ABMU! Very much like in 1995 against Blackburn, when Redknapp curled in a sublime free kick and the whole of Anfield as one shouted “What are you doing?!!!”, a winner on Sunday may meet with a similar reaction.

In an ideal world, there will be some divine intervention earlier in the day at the Stadium of Light, meaning we can beat Chelsea without fear of handing United the advantage. Please God, anything…a dodgy penalty decision, a couple of red cards (both for Neville, if possible), hey…maybe even a beach ball?

But, if you ask me what I honestly want to happen on Sunday, I want us to beat Chelsea. I want to see the fighting spirit of Stevie and Carra that has typified many a Liverpool performance over the last five years but has been sadly lacking this year. If we lose on Sunday with little more than a whimper, I will be disappointed and angry to say the least, never mind the bitter consolation that the league title will be all but beyond United.

My sentiments are divided over Europe too. Who would begrudge Fulham victory if an all-English Europa League final does materialise? No one could claim that they don’t deserve it. They’ve been better than Liverpool and that’s a fact. The Liverpool fans would applaud Fulham and show the same pride we want to see from the players against Chelsea on Sunday.

I want to be able to hold my head high as a Liverpool fan this summer when I swap my red shirt for my England jersey. Maybe we will finish fourth and qualify for the Champions League. We might even have a European trophy. It’s been a bad season and it has not been good enough by the standards we set last year. Even if we do celebrate European glory in Hamburg, the Bernabeu will remain a distant memory.

Volcanic Ash Nearly Out Of Europe

Elite footballers and comfort zones aren’t often separated. But then, huge volcanoes in Iceland don’t normally erupt and ground the continent’s air traffic for a week. As evidenced by the embarrassing media circus that followed Liverpool, Fulham, Barcelona and, to a lesser extent, Lyon around Europe this week tweeting about whether or not they were getting enough sleep, the clubs’ preparations for significant European fixtures were somewhat out of the ordinary.

The whole thing was a bit like a student challenge. You have to get hundreds of miles across Europe, but you can’t use planes. Liverpool, you must travel 1,200 miles, Lyon 700 miles, Fulham 600 and Barcelona 450. You can use coaches and trains, even where it would be quicker to walk (the 0.8 miles from Euston to Kings Cross, LIVERPOOL), because, lest we forget, you are not students but elite footballers. HEY – Liverpool. Get off that plane in Bordeaux. That’s not in the rules. GET OFF.

Fine, I hope you lose.

Elite footballers, as the press reminded those who dared to suggest that sitting on a coach for two days could hamper performance levels, remain professional. And remain professional they did, but still, no team that travelled in Europe this week won a game. Only one of them scored in the 360 minutes of football played.

Now, it’s not exclusively the fault of volcanic ash, but the disruption didn’t help. Admittedly, Barcelona were undone by Mourinho’s Inter in ways we pointed out on Wednesday. Fulham actually got a really good result, even if by all accounts they essentially parked the bus they arrived on in front of goal after losing Zamora. But Liverpool… well, sometimes it looks as if crossing the halfway line is a journey too far for a result, let alone going all the way to Madrid, let alone doing so on a coach. Still, they only lost 1-0. Lyon, while also only losing by an odd goal, failed to score against 10 men – in fact Bayern dominated throughout – and conceded when they were a player up on the hosts. There were definitely some weary performances.

In fixtures where the second leg is far more important – so much so that ludicrously, the six UEFA Cup/Europa League semi-final first leg games over the past three seasons have produced a total of only six goals – perhaps analysing the result is a bit futile. It’s only half time, after all. You would still back all four who were on the road this week to qualify, especially if Ribery is suspended for Bayern.

If they don’t, you can guarantee that no one will use the ‘ready-made excuse’ about the travel disruptions. But they should. Sitting on a coach for long periods is horrendous, as almost every lower-league and amateur footballer can testify. Most professional clubs who make long journeys to Torquay or Carlisle or other crumbling footballing outposts like Anfield tend not to perform remarkably well. Mind you, try and imagine sitting on a coach with your workmates for 1,200 miles. Maybe the professionals dealt with it rather well. Rob MacDonald

Arise, Sir Roy

Since the end of December 2007, the only stock to have risen higher than Roy Hodgson’s is that of Tamiflu. And, given that the majority of us didn’t die or turn into pigs, you can guarantee that will be declining soon. Hodgson’s, by contrast, shows no signs of abating.

Incredibly, Fulham are now in the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup/Europa League/Spawn of Platini having played 16 games in the tournament so far and 55 in all competitions this season. Preposterously they have knocked out last year’s champions Shakhtar Donetsk, Italy’s Old Lady, Juventus, and now German champions Wolfsburg, who began the season in the Champions League. To even get to the knockouts, Fulham survived a group containing Roma, involved at Serie A’s summit this year, Basel and CSKA Sofia. They’re also safe for another year in the Premier League, sitting 12th.

Hodgson is no stranger to fantastically mind-numbing achievement, having made Switzerland the third best team in the world at one point in the mid-90s. His achievements at Fulham potentially surpass even that, though it is hard to say which is his greatest. Saving the club from relegation with 12 points from their final five games in 2008 – including that turnaround from 2-0 down at half time to win 3-2 at Eastlands – takes some beating. Subsequently leading Fulham to their highest ever finish in seventh place and European competition in 2008/09 somehow saw Sir Alex Ferguson awarded the Manager of the Year accolade for the ninth time.

Finding Brede Hangeland was a stroke of genius. Signing Mark Schwarzer was another. And how good a bit of business was Bobby Zamora for £4.8m? And who could get so much out of a seemingly past it Damien Duff? And Clint Dempsey? And flog a barely-proven Chris Smalling to United for £20m? And… you get the picture.

The only thing possibly standing between Hodgson and being named Manager of the Year is that his achievements haven’t taken place in the Premier League. On relative Premier League form alone this year, Hodgson could be pipped to the post by Alex McLeish. David Moyes is a frequent contender. Should Harry Redknapp take Spurs to fourth, he might get the nod. But no one can deny Hodgson deserves recognition for taking Fulham from relegation favourites to Europa League semi-finalists in two years. His reward would be long overdue.

This season has surpassed all expectations. Fulham knocked Juventus out of Europe. JUVENTUS. That alone, for a club that has a ‘neutral end’ at its ground and Mohamed Al Fayed as chairman, should see Hodgson knighted. For now though, the odyssey continues – Fulham meet Hamburg in the semis for the right to contest the final in… er, Hamburg on May 12th. Hodgson’s stock may not have peaked just yet. Rob MacDonald